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4 guys from alabama announce plans to make the worlds largest single-piece carbon fiber layup
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Mar 23, 2021 20:59
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slidebite posted:Yes, another revolutionary aircraft design. I was curious about whatever happened to those blended wing body prototypes and just saw this for the first time: https://www.flightglobal.com/singapore-air-show-2020/airbus-studies-blended-wing-airliner-designs-to-slash-fuel-burn/136662.article https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3368Oz5dz7Q Imagine convincing Airbus to let you build a big RC plane to play with.
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Mar 23, 2021 21:05
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"I'm going to make a plane that looks nothing like conventional planes, because it's my opinion that every aeronautical engineer who isn't me has never considered the relative merits of novel designs, despite that being every engineer's most favourite thing to do, and I the 100+ years of aviation history has produced a preference for a bad design despite any number of novel designs having already been tried." -- every moron ever, apparently
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Mar 23, 2021 22:57
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I'm curious how "stupid long fuel tank on top of fuselage" would even work for the center of gravity. Even though the Concorde required a fuel transfer system to keep the CG in the ideal location, the fuel tanks on that airplane were still relatively close to the CG, so the plumbing, baffles, and pump setup to maintain a constant center of gravity in a fuel tank that's probably over 100ft long would be absolutely hilarious.
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Mar 23, 2021 23:10
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Come to think of undergrad engineers - I knew one whose undergrad project was to crunch the numbers for a giant railgun for environmentally sustainable passenger transport. As in, charge it up electrically, shoot a massive projectile filled with people into the sky, let it glide down on the other side of the continent. Wish he'd built a prototype.
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Mar 23, 2021 23:28
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azflyboy posted:I'm curious how "stupid long fuel tank on top of fuselage" would even work for the center of gravity. That would pose various problems, but I don't think this is one of them. It would surely be sectioned off into at least a few separate tanks to prevent slosh, and an automated transfer system to maintain the CG would not be a big deal. Current planes already deal with that in the lateral dimension. Much bigger is the crash safety problem of fuel above the cabin, the problem of fuselage size to create volume for this, and the wing bending stress of all that weight in the fuselage instead of wings.
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Mar 23, 2021 23:31
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azflyboy posted:I'm curious how "stupid long fuel tank on top of fuselage" would even work for the center of gravity. As long as they section it and continue to pump fuel into the tank near the CoG, it should be fine.
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Mar 23, 2021 23:57
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Lord Stimperor posted:Come to think of undergrad engineers - I knew one whose undergrad project was to crunch the numbers for a giant railgun for environmentally sustainable passenger transport. As in, charge it up electrically, shoot a massive projectile filled with people into the sky, let it glide down on the other side of the continent. Wish he'd built a prototype. I like this more than the three winged v-tail bullshit. If you deal with the problems with jerk and acceleration... it's at least tempting to try, rather than a three-winged bullshit with one loving engine.
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Mar 24, 2021 00:01
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Lord Stimperor posted:Come to think of undergrad engineers - I knew one whose undergrad project was to crunch the numbers for a giant railgun for environmentally sustainable passenger transport. As in, charge it up electrically, shoot a massive projectile filled with people into the sky, let it glide down on the other side of the continent. Wish he'd built a prototype. Uh hello, coil gun better? 
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Mar 24, 2021 00:02
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PT6A posted:"I'm going to make a plane that looks nothing like conventional planes, because it's my opinion that every aeronautical engineer who isn't me has never considered the relative merits of novel designs, despite that being every engineer's most favourite thing to do, and I the 100+ years of aviation history has produced a preference for a bad design despite any number of novel designs having already been tried." There was a fabulous Radiolab episode about self-taught 'scientists' / inventors who deliberately eschewed a formal science education because it pigeonholed you into little things like the empirical method and established physics. Why would you want to limit your mind's potential, maaaaaan
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Mar 24, 2021 02:38
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Has anyone come up with a completely idiotic idea to "disrupt" aviation that combines half-assed engineering, understanding nothing about stuff like airspace or human factors, blockchain, and some kind of app? From what I've seen, VC idiots will shovel lots of money at anything that has at least one of those, so combining them should enable someone to bilk approximately all of the venture capital money.
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Mar 24, 2021 02:46
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azflyboy posted:Has anyone come up with a completely idiotic idea to "disrupt" aviation that combines half-assed engineering, understanding nothing about stuff like airspace or human factors, blockchain, and some kind of app? Kinda sorta makes me think of that "train/airplane" hybrid idea from a while back.
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Mar 24, 2021 02:49
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azflyboy posted:Has anyone come up with a completely idiotic idea to "disrupt" aviation that combines half-assed engineering, understanding nothing about stuff like airspace or human factors, blockchain, and some kind of app? The engine switches to a ram air turbine to power bitcoin mining in flight, which passengers can bid on via the app. As an added bonus you get to ignore the laws of thermodynamics too.
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Mar 24, 2021 02:54
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PT6A posted:"I'm going to make a plane that looks nothing like conventional planes, because it's my opinion that every aeronautical engineer who isn't me has never considered the relative merits of novel designs, despite that being every engineer's most favourite thing to do, and I the 100+ years of aviation history has produced a preference for a bad design despite any number of novel designs having already been tried." I'm in this picture and I don't like it.
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Mar 24, 2021 02:55
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OTOH didn't somebody say something like "if it isn't sexy it doesn't fly" because they thought unconventional designs wouldn't sell?
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Mar 24, 2021 02:58
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Lord Stimperor posted:Come to think of undergrad engineers - I knew one whose undergrad project was to crunch the numbers for a giant railgun for environmentally sustainable passenger transport. As in, charge it up electrically, shoot a massive projectile filled with people into the sky, let it glide down on the other side of the continent. Wish he'd built a prototype. This is the kind of public transit we'd get if supervillains and mad scientists ran the world
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Mar 24, 2021 03:44
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Lord Stimperor posted:Come to think of undergrad engineers - I knew one whose undergrad project was to crunch the numbers for a giant railgun for environmentally sustainable passenger transport. As in, charge it up electrically, shoot a massive projectile filled with people into the sky, let it glide down on the other side of the continent. Wish he'd built a prototype. I fantasized about this a lot as a child.
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Mar 24, 2021 04:13
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Elviscat posted:I fantasized about this a lot as a child. Turns out the math says it takes the same time shooting down as shooting up. Thus, Hyperloop. A straight line connecting two points on the earth is a ballistic path (more or less).
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Mar 24, 2021 04:43
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slidebite posted:Yes, another revolutionary aircraft design...  
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Mar 24, 2021 06:56
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azflyboy posted:Has anyone come up with a completely idiotic idea to "disrupt" aviation that combines half-assed engineering, understanding nothing about stuff like airspace or human factors, blockchain, and some kind of app? So many point-to-point VTOL aero-taxi / flying car companies. Quadcopters are cheap and easy, so why not human transport? Here's a bunch of them: https://newatlas.com/aircraft/evtol-air-taxi-flying-car-market-players/ Many of these companies have even built flying prototypes, but it remains to be seen if they'll make it to production. NightGyr fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Mar 24, 2021 |
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Mar 24, 2021 08:31
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Charles posted:OTOH didn't somebody say something like "if it isn't sexy it doesn't fly" because they thought unconventional designs wouldn't sell? That's paraphrasing Dassault
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Mar 24, 2021 09:38
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Charles posted:OTOH didn't somebody say something like "if it isn't sexy it doesn't fly" because they thought unconventional designs wouldn't sell? See the virgin A380 vs. the Chad 747.
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Mar 24, 2021 13:39
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PT6A posted:See the Chad A380 vs. the virgin 747. 
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Mar 24, 2021 13:40
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Quoted for truth.
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Mar 24, 2021 15:42
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In the sense that one is a beefy caveman and the other is a beautiful lady, sure
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Mar 24, 2021 16:54
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PT6A posted:"I'm going to make a plane that looks nothing like conventional planes, because it's my opinion that every aeronautical engineer who isn't me has never considered the relative merits of novel designs, despite that being every engineer's most favourite thing to do, and I the 100+ years of aviation history has produced a preference for a bad design despite any number of novel designs having already been tried." A friend of mine was dating a woman who when she found out I work as an engineer in the aerospace realm insisted on showing me her drawings of revolutionary new helicopter designs. Apparently, this was a thing she liked to do in her free time. Anyway, I didn't have the heart to tell her that counter rotating blades had been around since the beginning. Not that she could explain why having two sets of blades spinning in alternate directions was something good or what kind of benefits there would be or if there were any downsides. She just liked the look of it, so to her it was a good design and if she could find the right person to show her drawings to then it would revolutionize the world. For a lot of people, 'invention' is just a thing where you throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks. As though a scientist is really just someone who got lucky with a random idea, 'million monkeys at a typewriter' style. edit VV my two favorites are from when I was trying to make some money doing free lance programming/web dev stuff in college: The first one wanted to 'make ebay, but better' he didn't have any money, I would do the work for free and he would cut me in on some of the loot from his sweet, sweet concept. The second one wanted me to make a web search and redirect service so you could just tell your computer, 'go to X' and it would figure out the right URL and send you there. Also didn't have any money, but if I would work for free he would cut me in on some of that loot as well. I can't imagine what kind of unsolicited 'ideas' people like Elon Musk or Bill Gates must get. Murgos fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Mar 24, 2021 |
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Mar 24, 2021 18:54
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When I explain to people what an industrial designer is they also tend to give me their million-dollar product ideas. It's always something that already exists in a Shopping Network commercial, or does not exist for good reason. I think my favorite was a person who, when I explained that one thing industrial designers work on is car styling, told me that I should design a body kit for a Chevy Cavalier that gave it a Corvette rear end. "That would look so sweet, you know?"
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Mar 24, 2021 18:59
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I feel like these sorts of things are propagated because there are so many stories touted as American exceptionalism of people hitting it big with some dumb idea that shouldn’t have worked but somehow did, neglecting the thousands if not millions of people’s ideas that went nowhere because they were bad. This combined with the idea of a “lone inventor” revolutionizing the world, when really there were tons of people all working towards the same thing at the time, and it’s just that whoever gets there first goes down in history and is remembered. There are countless examples of this like the telephone, light bulb, airplanes, sewing machines, computers, etc. And everyone sees themselves as the hero of their story, and can’t handle just being another easily replaceable cog in the machine of society.
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Mar 24, 2021 19:10
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otoh one really good idea came from my uncle when he was falling-down drunk. he said "you know those pocket pussy things [fleshlights, i assume]? okay so what you do is make a gun stock for those assault rifles that has a pocket pussy in it so that guys who love their guns can gently caress their gun while they shoot it. you know--" [makes pelvic thrusting motions and PKOW, PKOW, PKOW sounds]
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Mar 24, 2021 19:27
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Brillian Idea scene from Knocked Up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mu-sWbIpls
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Mar 24, 2021 19:33
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Sagebrush posted:otoh one really good idea came from my uncle when he was falling-down drunk. he said "you know those pocket pussy things [fleshlights, i assume]? okay so what you do is make a gun stock for those assault rifles that has a pocket pussy in it so that guys who love their guns can gently caress their gun while they shoot it. you know--" [makes pelvic thrusting motions and PKOW, PKOW, PKOW sounds] It's a niche market, but it would sell.
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Mar 24, 2021 19:46
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Liability is too high. You couldn't market it like that since you would be sued the first time someone smashed their balls from recoil or managed to shoot themselves.
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Mar 24, 2021 19:49
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e.pilot posted:I feel like these sorts of things are propagated because there are so many stories touted as American exceptionalism of people hitting it big with some dumb idea that shouldn’t have worked but somehow did, neglecting the thousands if not millions of people’s ideas that went nowhere because they were bad. This combined with the idea of a “lone inventor” revolutionizing the world, when really there were tons of people all working towards the same thing at the time, and its just that whoever gets there first goes down in history and is remembered. There are countless examples of this like the telephone, light bulb, airplanes, sewing machines, computers, etc. And everyone sees themselves as the hero of their story, and can’t handle just being another easily replaceable cog in the machine of society.  People like to think they are somehow, deep down special, but virtually everyone on this planet (including yours truly) is a actually loving moron in 99.999% of anything specialized if they don't have training, especially on any somewhat technical subject. The first step is being humble and then maybe learn enough to grasp how much you don't know. One thing this pandemic has shown me, is I had no idea I had some many people I personally know that are actually experts in communicable diseases and vaccines. The best is when you try to correct something absolutely egregiously wrong, you get accused of trying to be an expert. "No, I'm not an expert, but I know enough about it that I know what you are saying is almost certainly horse poo poo." The internet giving every loving loony idiot a soapbox since everyone not being equipped with the most basic critical thinking tools is probably one of humanities biggest mistakes.
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Mar 24, 2021 19:51
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There was this guy on Shark Tank a long time ago who claimed that he could get trillions of dollars' worth of gold from seawater and all he needed was to build these big loving towers in the middle of the ocean that looked like the Riddler's brain-wave capturing device from Batman Forever. He had that  look about him while each one politely (and not-so-politely) told him to  .It's the same principle as people who think there's a fortune to be made sucking exhaust fumes and potentially getting hit to recover the microscopic traces of platinum from catalytic converters on the side of roads and highways.
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Mar 24, 2021 19:56
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Apparently roadside dust does have enough platinum in it that it would be considered a rich ore. If, you know, there was a hundred million tons of it heaped on the side of a mountain somewhere instead of traces along the highway in the middle of the city.
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Mar 24, 2021 20:04
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BIG HEADLINE posted:There was this guy on Shark Tank a long time ago who claimed that he could get trillions of dollars' worth of gold from seawater and all he needed was to build these big loving towers in the middle of the ocean that looked like the Riddler's brain-wave capturing device from Batman Forever. He had that You just don't get it, man. I saw a video of this guy who spend all day sweeping up dust from the highway and he got a nickel's worth of platinum out of it.
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Mar 24, 2021 20:04
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It would be worth it if you could monetize more of the supply chain. Say the local government pays you to clean the roads, your processing plant gives off waste heat you can sell as district heating and the rare earth metals thing becomes a low cost side gig.
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Mar 24, 2021 20:10
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BIG HEADLINE posted:There was this guy on Shark Tank a long time ago who claimed that he could get trillions of dollars' worth of gold from seawater and all he needed was to build these big loving towers in the middle of the ocean that looked like the Riddler's brain-wave capturing device from Batman Forever. He had that Did anyone point out that this was very similar to a con pulled on The Munsters in 1964? quote:Herman Munster's brother Uncle Charlie (who is a con man), comes to visit The Munsters at their house. His entire visit is just so that he can sell off a worthless machine that he claims extracts uranium from sea water. The Munster family falls for this ploy because Grandpa's geiger counter reads that it is uranium. Although it was uranium, Charlie had put it there beforehand and the machine really only makes sand
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Mar 24, 2021 20:14
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Sagebrush posted:otoh one really good idea came from my uncle when he was falling-down drunk. he said "you know those pocket pussy things [fleshlights, i assume]? okay so what you do is make a gun stock for those assault rifles that has a pocket pussy in it so that guys who love their guns can gently caress their gun while they shoot it. you know--" [makes pelvic thrusting motions and PKOW, PKOW, PKOW sounds] Sagebrush posted:It's always something that already exists  Now also includes a bonus letter from the ATF technical division clarifying that Tac-Sac is not a vertical foregrip!
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Mar 24, 2021 20:47
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I would draw submarines in my notebooks when I was bored during class. I'm an idiot for not sending them to some VC to give me billions of dollars for a 3D render and a press release.
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Mar 24, 2021 20:50
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